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From: Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40

The Lord’s Special Providence Towards His People

(Moses said to the people,) [32] “For ask now of the days that are past, which
were before you, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask
from one end of heaven to the other, whether such a great thing as this has ever
happened or was ever heard of. [33] Did any people ever hear the voice of a god
speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live? [34] 0r has
any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of ano-
ther nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and
an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your
God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? [39] know therefore this day, and lay
it to your heart, that the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath;
there is no other. [40] Therefore you shall keep his statutes and his command-
ments, which I command you this day, that it may go well with you, and with
your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which
the LORD your God gives you for ever.”

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Commentary:

4:32-40. The end of this first discourse carries an important theological message:
the profound notion of one God (monotheism); the election of Israel as God’s spe-
cific people; his special and kindly providence towards this people; the might of
God, as manifested in the prodigious works he does in favor of the chosen people;
and the consequence of all this—Israel’s duty to be faithful to the one and only
God, keeping his commandments and offering due cult only to him; by so doing,
Israel will continue to enjoy his protection.

Reading this and other passages in the sacred books shows the efforts the in-
spired writers made to update the teaching of religious traditions and apply it to
the situation and needs of Israelites in later periods; this is perhaps the reason
for the frequent calls to fidelity to the Covenant. “In the course of its history,
Israel was able to discover that God had only one reason to reveal himself to
them, a single motive for choosing them from among alt peoples as his special
possession: his sheer gratuitous love (cf. Deut 4:37; 7:8; 10:15). And thanks to
the prophets Israel understood that it was again out of love that God never
stopped saving them (cf. Is 43:1-7) and pardoning their unfaithfulness and sins
(cf. Hos 2)” (”Catechism of the Catholic Church”, 218).

The Deuteronomic formula of “the Lord is God [”ha-Elohim”, that is, the only
God] and there is no other besides him” (v. 35), which occurs often (cf. 4:39; 6:4;
32:39; etc.) is also the essence of the Prophets’ message (cf. Jer 2:11-33; Is 41:
2-29; 44:6; 46:9). The Prophets strove to draw Israel towards or maintain it in fide-
lity to the One and Only God who revealed himself to the patriarchs and to Moses,
and helped to develop and deepen an appreciation of monotheism, of the univer-
sality of the power of Yahweh, of his moral demands, etc. But the core of all this
teaching is to be found expounded, profoundly and very specifically, in the book
of Deuteronomy. This teaching builds up the notion of the Lord as a jealous God”
(cf. Ex 20:5) who requires his adherents to be totally obedient to him; it is a no-
tion incompatible with worshipping the divinities adored by other peoples (cf. Ex
20:3).

Being good, obeying the commandments of the Law of God, brings life (v. 40),
initially understood as longevity; whereas sin often brings with it misfortune or
death, as a punishment fro, God (cf. Ezek 18:10-13,19-20; etc.). The fact that
God is just in his treatment of man, rewarding him or punishing, sooner or later,
for the good or the evil he does, is a message that runs right through the Old
and New Testaments. In ancient texts, the accent is on reward or punishment
in this present life. In the New Testament more emphasis is put on divine retri-
bution in the future life. It is not surprising that there should be this line of deve-
lopment in the biblical ethic: God takes account of time and grace to lead men
to the fullness of truth.

*********************************************************************************************
Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.

From: Romans 8:14-17

Life in the Spirit (continued)

[11] If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who
raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through
his Spirit who dwells in you. [12] So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the
flesh, to live according to the flesh – [13] for if you live according to the flesh you
will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live.

Christians are children of God

[14] For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. [15] For you did
not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the
spirit of sonship. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” [16] it is the Spirit himself bea-
ring witness with our spirit that we are children of God, [17] and if children, then
heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in
order that we may also be glorified with him.

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Commentary:

10-11. Once he is justified the Christian lives in the grace of God and confidently
hopes in his future resurrection; Christ himself lives in him (cf. Gal 2:20; 1 Cor 15:
20-23). However, he is not spared the experience of death, a consequence of
original sin (cf. Rom 5:12; 6:23). Along with suffering, concupiscence and other
limitations, death is still a factor after Baptism; it is something which motivates
us to struggle and makes us to be like Christ. Almost all commentators interpret
the expression “your bodies are dead because of sin” as referring to the fact that,
due to sin, the human body is destined to die. So sure is this prospect of death
that the Apostle sees the body as “already dead”.

St. John Chrysostom makes an acute observation: if Christ is living in the Chris-
tian, then the divine Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity, is also present in him.
If this divine Spirit is absent, then indeed death reigns supreme, and with it the
wrath of God, rejection of his laws, separation from Christ, and expulsion of our
Guest. And he adds: “But when one has the Spirit within, what can be lacking?
With the Spirit one belongs to Christ, one possesses him, one vies for honour
with the angels. With the Spirit, the flesh is crucified, one tastes the delight of an
immortal life, one has a pledge of future resurrection and advances rapidly on the
path of virtue. This is what Paul calls putting the flesh to death” (Hom. on Rom,
13).

14-30. The life of a Christian is sharing in the life of Christ, God’s only Son. By
becoming, through adoption, true children of God we have, so to speak, a right
to share also in Christ’s inheritance – eternal life in heaven (vv. 13-18). This di-
vine life in us, begun in Baptism through rebirth in the Holy Spirit, will grow under
the guidance of this Spirit, who makes us ever more like Christ (vv. 14, 26-27).
So, our adoption as sons is already a fact – we already have the first fruits of the
Spirit (v. 23) – but only at the end of time, when our body rises in glory, will our
redemption reach its climax (vv. 23-25). Meanwhile we are in a waiting situation
– not free from suffering (v. 18), groans (v. 23) and weakness (v. 26) – a situation
characterized by a certain tension between what we already possess and are,
and what we yearn for. This yearning is something which all creation experien-
ces; by God’s will, its destiny is intimately linked to our own, and it too awaits
its transformation at the end of the world (vv. 19-22). All this is happening in
accordance with a plan which God has, a plan established from all eternity
which is unfolding the course of time under the firm guidance of divine provi-
dence (vv. 28-30)

14-15 St. Josemaria Escriva taught thousands of people about this awareness
of divine filiation which is such an important part of the Christian vocation. Here
is what he says, for example, in The Way, 267: “We’ve got to be convinced that
God is always near us. We live as though he were far away, in the heavens high
above, and we forget that he is also continually by our side.

“He is there like a loving Father. He loves each of us more than all the mothers
in the world can love their children – helping, inspiring us, blessing . . . and for-
giving.

“How often we have misbehaved and then cleared the frowns from our parents’
brows, telling them: I won’t do it any more! – That same day, perhaps, we fall
again . . . – And our father, with feigned harshness in his voice and serious face,
reprimands us while in his heart he is moved, realizing our weakness and thin-
king: poor child, how hard he tries to behave well!

“We’ve go to be filled, to be imbued with the idea that our Father, and very much
our Father, is God who is both near us and in heaven.”

This awareness of God as Father was something which the first chancellor of
the University of Navarre experienced with special intensity one day in 1931:
“They were difficult times, from a human point of view, but even so I was quite
sure of the impossible – this impossibility which you can now see as an accom-
plished fact. I felt God acting within me with overriding force, filling my heart and
bringing to my lips this tender invocation – Abba! Pater! I was out in the street,
in a tram; being out in the street is no hindrance for our contemplative dialogue;
for us, the hustle and bustle of the world is a place for prayer” (St. J. Escrivá,
quoted in Bernal, p. 214).

*********************************************************************************************
Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.

From: Matthew 28:16-20

Appearance in Galilee. The Mission to the World

[16] Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus
had directed them. [17] And when they saw him they worshipped him; but some
doubted. [18] And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on
earth has been given to me. [19] Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
[20] teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with
you always, to the close of the age.”

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Commentary:

16-20. This short passage, which brings to a close the Gospel of St Matthew,
is of great importance. Seeing the risen Christ, the disciples adore him, worship-
ping him as God. This shows that at last they are fully conscious of what, from
much earlier on, they felt in their heart and confessed by their words—that their
Master is the Messiah, the Son of God (cf. Mt 16:18; Jn 1:49). They are over-
come by amazement and joy at the wonder their eyes behold: it seems almost
impossible, were he not before their very eyes. Yet he is completely real, so
their fearful amazement gives way to adoration. The Master addresses them with
the majesty proper to God: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given
to me.” Omnipotence, an attribute belonging exclusively to God, belongs to him:
he is confirming the faith of his worshippers; and he is also telling them that the
authority which he is going to give them to equip them to carry out their mission
to the whole world, derives from his own divine authority.

On hearing him speak these words, we should bear in mind that the authority of
the Church, which is given it for the salvation of mankind, comes directly from
Jesus Christ, and that this authority, in the sphere of faith and morals, is above
any other authority on earth.

The Apostles present on this occasion, and after them their lawful successors,
receive the charge of teaching all nations what Jesus taught by word and work:
he is the only path that leads to God. The Church, and in it all Christian faithful,
have the duty to proclaim until the end of time, by word and example, the faith
that they have received. This mission belongs especially to the successors of
the Apostles, for on them devolves the power to teach with authority, “for, before
Christ ascended to his Father after his resurrection, he [...] entrusted them with
the mission and power to proclaim to mankind what they had heard, what they
had seen with their eyes, what they had looked upon and touched with their
hands, concerning the Word of Life (1 Jn 1:1). He also entrusted them with the
mission and power to explain with authority what he had taught them, his words
and actions, his signs and commandments. And he gave them the Spirit to fulfill
their mission” (Bl. John Paul II, “Catechesi Tradendae”, 1). Therefore, the tea-
chings of the Pope and of the Bishops united to him should always be accepted
by everyone with assent and obedience.

Here Christ also passes on to the Apostles and their successors the power to
baptize, that is, to receive people into the Church, thereby opening up to them
the way to personal salvation.

The mission which the Church is definitively given here at the end of St Mat-
thew’s Gospel is one of continuing the work of Christ—teaching men and women
the truths concerning God and the duty incumbent on them to identify with these
truths, to make them their own by having constant recourse to the grace of the
sacraments. This mission will endure until the end of time and, to enable it to do
this work, the risen Christ promises to stay with the Church and never leave it.
When Sacred Scripture says that God is with someone, this means that that per-
son will be successful in everything he undertakes. Therefore, the Church, helped
in this way by the presence of its divine Founder, can be confident of never failing
to fulfill its mission down the centuries until the end of time.

*********************************************************************************************
Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.

Scripture readings from the Jerusalem Bible by Darton, Longman & Todd

Readings at Mass

Liturgical Colour: White.

First reading
Deuteronomy 4:32-34,39-40 ©

The Lord is God indeed: he and no other

Moses said to the people: ‘Put this question to the ages that are past, that went before you, from the time God created man on earth: Was there ever a word so majestic, from one end of heaven to the other? Was anything ever heard? Did ever a people hear the voice of the living God speaking from the heart of the fire, as you heard it, and remain alive? Has any god ventured to take to himself one nation from the midst of another by ordeals, signs, wonders, war with mighty hand and outstretched arm, by fearsome terrors – all this that the Lord your God did for you before your eyes in Egypt?

‘Understand this today, therefore, and take it to heart: the Lord is God indeed, in heaven above as on earth beneath, he and no other. Keep his laws and commandments as I give them to you today, so that you and your children may prosper and live long in the land that the Lord your God gives you for ever.’

Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 32(33):4-6,9,18-20,22 ©